FaOC Research

Parallel to the project “My Film, My Story”, the FaOC research is taking place at Radboud University Nijmegen, within the PhD research of Mascha Legel, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bert Steenbergen, Dr. Ronald Spanjers, Dr. Stijn Deckers, and Prof. Dr. Hans van Balkom. Here it is studied whether, and if so, how the use of FaOC can lead to an improvement in communication and visible word in the conversation with communication partners. It focuses on the research of "storytelling" with the support of FaOC can be studied, and how the FaOC method can be further developed for practice. During the research, a FaOC coding model was developed with an international research team: Dr. Nicola Grove (Rix Centre, University of East London), Prof. Dr. Annalu Waller (Dundee University), and Prof. Dr. Gloria Soto (San Francisco State University). This model was subsequently developed into a FaOC scorecard, manageable for teachers and speech therapists, to score the conversation, with and without FaOC.

The FaOC coding model and the FaOC scorecard focus on three aspects of a conversation: 1) Topic development, 2) Conversation repair, and 3) Conversation structure. These three aspects of a conversation provide insight into the conversation balance between the child / young person with a communication challenge and his / her communication partners. With a good conversation balance, both communication partners have equal input and participation. By providing information, asking questions, or for example developing a new topic in a story or conversation. These are the skills that are difficult for children and young people who do not speak or speak with difficulty. The conversation is therefore often out of balance, the communication partner often has more input in the conversation. By examining the conversation, with and without FaOC, the effect of FaOC on "a conversation" can be studied.